Storno
History

From
Morse telegraphy to modern technology, this is a brief history of Storno
and it's related companies.

The beginning

Storno
Radio Copenhagen was established in 1947 and was a division of the Great
Northern Telegraph Company, a Danish company founded in 1869 which provided
telegraph links between the UK and Scandinavia. The name Storno comes
from the combination of the Danish words for Great Northern (Store Nordiske).

Drawing from
the parent company's experience in the use and manufacture of high quality
communication equipment, Storno specialised from its inception in the
field of VHF and UHF FM radio communications.

Southern Instruments

Southern Instruments Limited was incorporated in 1938
and had only four employees in premises at Penge, South London. By 1946
the rate of expansion caused the company to move to premises at Hawley,
Hampshire.

The
product range consisted mainly of oscilloscopes and allied test equipment.
By 1954 the company's activities had grown to such an extent that a new
factory had to be built at Frimley Road, Camberley to house a growing
staff and production area manufacturing a wide range of instruments, including
data handling, recording, industrial, analytical and communication equipment.

Storno expanded into the UK through co-operation with Southern Instruments
and in 1960 Storno Ltd. was established. Storno equipment started being
produced at the Camberley factory and was sold in the UK and the commonwealth
alongside the Southern Instruments test equipment range under the Storno-Southern
banner.

Success
in the mobile radio business shifted the focus away from test equipment
and Storno continued to grow in Europe, in particular through co-operation
with Siemens in Germany.

GE-Storno

In
1976 Great Northern sold Storno which then became an affiliate company
of General Electric of America and this led to co-operation in development
resulting in the CQM5000, CQP4000, CQM900, CQF9000 and CQM1000 ranges
of equipment.

Storno
built a reputation based on manufacturing reliable equipment which was
technologically advanced but also flexible in design, serving the European
market with a range of systems which could be customised to specific user
applications

Motorola-Storno

In 1986 Motorola, seeking to increase it's share of the
European market, bought Storno resulting in a period of dual branded products.
Many of the Storno team remain at Motorola today and these combined talents
have led to a whole new range of innovative communication products.